Like most families in South Florida, Edy Martinez Lezcano's clan in Key Largo had a weird mid-week holiday to fill thanks to the Fourth of July. How to best make some family bonding happen on a weird Wednesday off work? A day fishing? A road trip to Sloppy Joes?
Nah, Lezcano's crew decided it'd be more fun to hit a local strip mall and shoplift hundreds of dollars of stuff from five different stores.
The day-long shoplifting spree fell apart around 4 p.m. on Wednesday when an employee at Key Largo's Publix noticed the 29-year-old Lezcano strolling out the door with a bag of groceries he hadn't paid for, according to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.
The employee called the sheriff's deputies, who found Lezcano standing outside the KMart next door; another cop spotted his wife, 37-year-old Maria de Los Angeles Betancourt nearby in an H3 Hummer. Lezcano's mother-in-law, 57-year-old Eustasia Gonzalez, was also nearby.
As the deputies verified that the Hummer had the stolen Publix food inside, a KMart manager approached the cops to report that the trio had also employed a five-fingered discount in his shop.
So the deputies took a look to see what else was in the Hummer. In the back, they found more than $700 worth of merchandise from KMart, Publix and three other stores in the same complex -- Beall's, Shell World and West Marine. None of it had been paid for, the cops say.
The trio were arrested and charged with five counts of theft. Jail -- another great bonding opportunity!
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